Technical glitch blamed for baby registry emails accidentally sent to some Amazon customers

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Amazon blames a technical glitch for a bizarre series of emails that recently went out to several customers.

The email informed customers that someone had purchased an item from their baby registry, but there was a major problem: most of the customers didn’t have a baby registry to begin with. Some of them didn’t even have a baby or weren’t expecting!

The email went out Tuesday, and many of those who received it wondered if it was a “phishing” attempt from someone trying to get their Amazon account information.

The emails were generically addressed to “Amazon Customer” and included a link inviting the recipient to view the “thank you” list for their registry. The link redirected some customers to a page to set up a new baby registry; other customers were simply taken to a broken link.

Several customers took to Twitter to express their surprise at receiving the email, with many of them wondering if Amazon knew something they didn’t:

Amazon said the email did actually originate from the retailer—it wasn’t a case of an unsavory email scammer trying to get anyone’s personal information. The links in the message went to Amazon sites in this particular case.

A spokesperson for the company said the messages were sent by mistake, blaming a glitch that caused the company to “inadvertently send a gift alert email.” Amazon was contacting affected customers to let them know about the mistake.